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29 May, 2006
The coal rush in the eastern United States has brought six more mining deaths in recent days, and again it is a fledgling mining company responsible for five of those deaths. On 20 May, five miners at the non-union Kentucky Darby Mine No. 1 in Harlan County, state of Kentucky, died after a methane explosion inside a shaft. Two of the miners died instantly due to the blast, while three others died underground later due to carbon monoxide poisoning.
On 24 May, a miner underground at International Coal Group’s (ICG) Sycamore II Mine near Jarvisville, state of West Virginia, died when he was struck in the head by a heavy wooden object. ICG is the non-union coal operator of the Sago Mine in West Virginia in which 12 miners were killed on 2 January 2006 following an explosion.
A miner who escaped the Harlan County blast questioned the reliability of self-contained oxygen packs provided to miners only a month before the 20 May explosion. Both ICG and Kentucky Darby LLC, which has operated the mine in eastern Kentucky since 2001, utilized the same emergency devices. Thirty-three mining deaths have happened in the US so far in 2006, with 19 of those deaths in West Virginia and ten in Kentucky.
On the day of the latest ICG death, the US Senate passed legislation mandating improved oxygen supplies, electronic tracking systems, fire-resistant lifelines, and local rescue teams, all areas in which start-up coal operators have been lax. The bill also requires up-to-date emergency preparedness and response plans that are continually monitored by the Mine Safety & Health Administration (MSHA). A companion bill is now in the US House.
The legislation is endorsed by ICEM affiliate United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), as well as by a coalmining employers’ group. But the association tempered its support over of a 15-minutes notification requirement to MSHA in the event of serious accidents. MSHA has also issued new rules on mine safety since the Sago Mine explosion.
The UMWA has called for miner tracking devises, wireless communication and emergency rescue chambers already in use in Germany, Poland and Australia. UMWA Director of Occupational Health and Safety, Dennis O’Dell, in a published report, said, “The emergency rules do some good things but don’t go far enough. We in the United States are really behind on the kind of technology that protects miners’ safety and is already saving lives in other countries.”